March 11, 2016: Day 68 – Luke 24

Luke has a great celebration to end his Gospel. While at the beginning you find the women terrified and (vs.5) bowing their faces to the ground you find the men amazed and disbelieving that God could act as he had promised all along. Poor guys, they were absolutely clueless on the road to Emmaus. Twice we read that the men thought the women were just telling idle tales (vs.11,22). Now we can excuse them somewhat because Scripture says (vs.16) that their eyes were kept from seeing Jesus. This is the same concept that we read when God hardened Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus. We also read Jesus’ words when he states that the Pharisees are kept from seeing as well in John 9:40. I know that is coming up next but we do find in Scripture that not only are people not understanding but that God actually makes people not understand. Okay, that’s a bit troubling. Why would God make people not understand? That really isn’t fair, is it? Moses responds that the reason why God closed Pharaoh’s heart was so that God’s glory could be revealed even more powerfully, which in fact did happen.

The road to Emmaus is a classic Scripture and it is one that we will be using for Easter this year. I have a request for all of you that are reading this. If you have a smartphone go ahead and download the following App: Augment (the image should be a white box inside a red border inside a black border). Just have it handy with you on Easter Sunday and what you will see take place is a bit hokie, but effective in understanding the Scripture that we have before us. The disciples have no idea that it was Jesus in their midst, and he lets them know what they are missing. At verse 25 he tells them that they are foolish and slow of heart to believe. That does sound like us, doesn’t it?

Starting at vs. 50 you have one of the most genuinely joyful scenes of Scripture even as Jesus is raised in the Ascension. We read that he lifted his hands and blessed them and they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and every day they were in the temple blessing God. Now that sounds good! We get a hint that there are greater things to come with this body of people. Remember that Luke is the author of the Acts of Apostles so we know that the early church has really just begun.